a ers ~~. “thangna.” Aad y

6 — Friday, August 28, 1998 — North Shore News

long-running Gillian Guess

movie reached its dramatic judg-

ment scene this week.

Unfortunately we are miles from the epic’s last reel.

The 43-year-old North Vancouver ‘woman was sentenced to 18 months in jail after she was found guilty of attempting to obstruct justice.

For Guess movie viewers, a retelling of the story thus far is unnec- essary. Suffice to say that Guess, a juror in a murder trial, was charged after she had an affair with one of the six accuseds during the trial.

Ie was the first time in Canadian his- tory that a juror had been charged with becoming romantically entangled with an accused: murderer while he was on trial. Guess’ subsequent trial made for high t theatre.or low comedy de on viewer tastes. And it left a key ques-

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VIEWPOINT

tion unanswered: if a relationship between a juror and an accused in a serious criminal trial was known to be under way, which it turns out was the case in the Guess affair, why was the juror not removed then?

As it is the local judicial system has been witness to one of the most bizarre cases in Canadian history.

Theatrics continued until the last scene. After she had been sentenced, Guess’ parting comment to B.C. Supreme Court Judge Raymond Paris was “May God forgive you.”

May God forgive the rest of us if the whole affair has left a greasy stain upon our judicial system and undermined faith in the integrity of juries.

And may God forgive us ali if we scream in unison at the prospect of having to sit through the sequel to this

BUT JEAN,

A LETTER You WROTE

PROMISING, IF

whole sordid production.

ntempt for the Spanish language is shown by

1 Shore News. The article. “The Art of the Michael Becker not only has its own rich upper inal and poor (as if poor was a

), birt cannot spell name is.‘ ¢Chiapas,” not. “Chia ce Called Chiapas. pe

The film

; Perhaps your-almighty anglo atid saxon persona wishes to ult cither: the dictionary or take Basic Spanish 10] at lano College before venturing into writing the language

thatthe Notth Shore News butch- spelling in Sai with beauties such as “El Nino” and

of Bert

r to. us as “Latinos” and “

ics.”

\ nl find in the map Hispanica as : Country. Yet you never refer to the Germans as “Germanics”

les

Englishmen: as “Brittanics.”

"Earth is is round and rotates. We are “up,” you are

on 9% your dislike for everything French. Yet “Nowth: ‘Vancouver RCMP. motto is © Mantiens le Her Most Britannic Majesty (your Head « of Statc)

and

ims reads'“On y soit. qui mal y dian “A Mare usque adh know what they racan.

the: édivor must be legible (preferably type-.

nse.” And in are.” Shame on

id include your name, full address and telephone

. Due to

yace constraints the North Shore News

North Sars News, founded in 1969 25 an

a suburban Newspcrer

and qualited

iniepanders 2

under Scnedie 111, Paragraph 711 of the Excise Tax Act, is published each

Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press

34 (127)

JUSTICE and Gillian:

Weli, in the end, the 18-month sen- tence for Gillian Guess struck a pretty fair balance between the advocacy of softies (like me), urging no jail, and titose who

‘wanted to stick matches

under. her fingernails, fol- towed by drawing and quartering in the public square.

The essence of my argument, you will clearly recall because you memo-*

. rized it, was that the bay-

ing for a really tough

‘prison sentence made

small sense: The North Vancouver resident poses

7 absolutely no threat to anyone, and will

fever havea chance of repeating her con- duct — having an affair with a man accused of murder while she was serving on the jury determining his fate and that of five other men charged in drug-war murders.

The deterrence argument, sometimes _

evoked by the bench to justify what might seem like a harsh sentence to dis- courage imitators, also falls fiat. The odds. of anyone aping Guess’ offence — techni- cally, attempting to obstruct justice — are just this side of nil. This was the first time anyone in Canada or the United States was charged with that offence for that conduct.

Not to understate the scricus potential of her “bad behavior and foolish judg- ment,” conduct that was “unethical and immoral,” and that suggested she is “very bright in some areas but ... very stupid in others.”

Those were Guess’ own words to the

PETER SPECK Publisher 985-2131 (101

Peters Photography Manager e218 00)

$15 aeg stn ect Friday & Sunray)

judge last week. Can't beat that for self-

knowledge. She made some truly flaky

statements in her shoot-from-her-fairly-

ample-hips blatherings to drooling

reporters while this sensational case rolled on.

.. She alienated many would-be sympathizers with her defiance and martyrdom Pose and by speculating on her book and movie prospects flowing from her experi-

ence. Ironically, the accused man with whom she had the (passionate, at least on her side) affair, Peter Gill, accurately summed up her public relations problem: “She has a big mouth.” But, Ud submit, her statement last week to Judge Raymond Paris also scored

an embarrassing hit.on the system: If her °

eyeball flirtations with Gill were so obvi-

.Ous t6 everyone in the courtroom -—

including the trial judge, who discussed it with Crown counsel — why was it allowed to continue? A declaration of mistria! could have saved much trouble.

(But there’s considerable doubt that’ ‘the: ;

six accused would have been convicted, , Guess or no Guess.)

And now, a coufession of my special interest in juries, apart from being a long-

ago court reporter and present reader of

many a court document: I ‘ve been called”.

- to jury duty next week mysel a Qo00

I first interviewed North Vancouver Reform MP Ted White over Rene Doyharcabal’s dining room table when he

was a political anknowi Reform party only sli tly was obviously zealous and

pe Pie lacked the and presence of, for i Reynoi-ls, a Don Bell; the canniness of ai Erie fist. OF affable east of a Russ Fraser, who, and puncture a balloon and jeec , atthe same time,

But White has grown steadily

cal stature, hasn’t lost his bearings,

I predicted, a litele pi Reform would quic! Ottawized. Broadenii pe: tended to dilute the prod ct Believers. : ; edanning, face-to-face, is cone § $

Of course I'm ane knows I'm joking